Re: THEORY: morphological processes

dirk elzinga wrote:
> 1.      vowel ablaut
None in Watakassí or in any of my conlangs.  However, I have
experimented with *umlaut* at times.

> 2.      consonant mutation
Watakassí has a good deal of this, in one form - gemination.  For
instance, tikistá/tikkistái (girl, girls), where ti-/ti*- is the
feminine singular/plural suffix - I use asterisk to mean "geminate the
adjacent consonant".  In the cases of "w", "y" and "l" there are some
phonetic (but not phonemic) changes in addition to lengthening - /w:/ ->
/B:/, /j:/ -> /J\:/ and /l:/ in some dialects becomes /K\/ (voiced
lateral fricative).  Later stages caused greater changes - voiceless
stops became ejectives, voiced stops became implosives, un-geminated
fricatives became approximate (v -> w; z,zy -> r; ky -> yh (/j_0/)),
while their geminate counterparts were unchanged, and nasals became
nasal-stop sequences, thus (phonetically - orthographically they were
mostly represented the same):
p   p'
t   t'
k   k'
b   b'
d   d'
g   g'
m   mb
n   nd
wh  f
rh  s, S
yh  C
w   v, B
r   z, Z
l   K\
y   J\

Also, certain sequences become single phonemes, thus t-witá (t- is a
allomorph of ti-) is pitá, but the plural is tiwwitái, for a bit of
extra complexity

> 4.      reduplications of various kinds
Reduplication is used to mean "too much" with adjectives, thus nisní =
high, nisní-nisni = too high (only one accent per word, the second is
dropped), affixes added around the reduplicated pair; thus feminine
ergative tinisníl/tinisní-nisnil; certain phonetic changes apply with
some pairing, like assí -> assíssi (ía -> í), íu -> íwiu (intervocalic
high vowels become glides).  I don't have any examples for other
changes, so I'll create new adjectives for these atápi -> atápyatapi (ia
-> ya) atáku -> atákwataku (ua -> wa), atátu -> atápatatu (tw -> p)

There are also unproductive forms of reduplications, at one time fairly
productive.  Total reduplication was used for intensity.  Compare Common
Kassí forms gëvá (pain) and gëvagëvá (the Agony) [note that at that
time, the second element kept the accent, rather than the first] which
have given Classic Watakassí gavá/gavaavá.  Partial reduplication (of
first syllable) was used also for intensity, but of less intensity than
full reduplication, as in këpáha (hit) and këkëpáha (beat), modern
kapáa/kaapáa; occasionally both were used as in betás (good) - bebetás
(terrific) - betasbetás (holy); modern bitá/bibitá/tasbitá (notice
contraction on last)

> 6.      other kinds of stem manipulations such as lengthening,
>         shortening, and deletion of vowels or consonants
Words ending in long vowels have changes made to them in the plural,
three types of changes, not synchronically predictable.  Type I VV ->
Vki, ex. walíi/waflíki (ritual(s)).  Type II VV -> Vyi, ex.
sutluníi/suttluníyi (hand(s)).  Type III VV -> Vi, ex. tiváa/tivvái
(that feminine one/those feminine ones), which, of course, means that if
the ending was -ii, there's no change, piningúsii/pifningúsii (wall(s))

Also, there is a group of words which have certain unpredictable
[synchronically speaking] changes in the plural, namely addition of
consonants, or, alternatively, deletion in the singular.  Example:
waníisa/wafníisafi (clan/clans), and another group that changes a final
fricative to a stop, pyalíf/pifyalípi (path/paths) - historically, this
is what types I and II of the long vowel words were; final /x/ and /G/
were lost, lengthening the vowels, so that walíi was originally walíkh,
sutluníi originally sutlunígh; gi at one time became yi; the type three
are descended from words originally ending in -Vqë, -VhV, or -VqV.  -Vqë
-> -Vqh -> -VV; -Vqëi -> Vqi -> Vi; -V(h/q)V -> -VV, -V(h/q)Vi -> VVi ->
Vi

> *       What morphological processes does your language use?
Mostly affixes and prefixes with two productive infixes, -tu-/-p-
(comparative) and -la- (superlative), following the first vowel, and
causing certain phonetic changes in some cases.  There are also one or
two non-productive infixes, surviving only as fossilized (and frequently
unanalyzable) forms, as in waníisa (clan) which is descended from
nékësaf, which was nésaf (tribe) + -kë- (dimminuitive); the old nésaf is
also represented by wayanísa (people), from gihanésaf < giha-
(augmentative) + nésaf; so, the connection between waníisa and wayanísa
is apparent, but somewhat obscured.

> *       Is the process the only marker of the grammatical
>         category, or is it used in conjunction with other
>         markers such as affixes?
The plurals of sentient nouns use gemination, but they also use the -i
suffix, as do the plurals of non-sentient nouns which also add -f after
the gender-prefix in the plural

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
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